Jean Rene Souetre expelled from the US 18hrs after JFKA?!

[Paul Brancato]

I don’t see resemblance to Oswald’s Minsk buddies, but I’m not convinced it’s Souetre either. Somehow whenever this general subject is looked at the experts here think that downplaying the Souetre in Dallas evidence, as the FBI certainly did, renders the bigger question of international fascists and their American brethren moot. Bad logic, but always ends further discussion. Larry, whose work I respect very much, thinks that the FBI put the Souetre in Dallas on Nov. 22 1963 to rest. When I asked him if the FBI’s investigation of Souetre satisfied French Intelligence he didn’t respond.
Have any of the posters on this thread read either of the two new books on Skorzeny? We could choose to focus on him instead. But this thread started by Chris is about Souetre, and I’m sure by now he has become aware that there have Been many such threads, always ending in dead ends. It reminds me of the French Connection threads, similarly dying on the vine, because that investigation ended with Christian David’s false leads. 
Gladio, Permindex, Skorzeny, QJWIN, CIA and US military connections to same should not be dismissed because of false leads.

[John Butler]

10 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

I don’t see resemblance to Oswald’s Minsk buddies, but I’m not convinced it’s Souetre either.

I can go along with that.  I can also go along with it being Souetre.  I just don't have evidence to prove either way.

 

11 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Have any of the posters on this thread read either of the two new books on Skorzeny?

I don't know anything about Skorzeny post WWII.  I should read up on him.

[Paul Brancato]

1 minute ago, John Butler said:

I can go along with that.  I can also go along with it being Souetre.  I just don't have evidence to prove either way.

 

I don't know anything about Skorzeny post WWII.  I should read up on him.

Two books are worth reading IMO - the Skorzeny Papers by Ralph Ganis, and Coup in Dallas by Hank Albarelli. I’ve done a lot of reading on this, and my own sleuthing as well. There is even a recent Spanish documentary on him. To me the most interesting connection is to Arnold Silver, one of his interrogators when Skorzeny was in US Army custody. Silver, at that time an investigator with the Army’s CIC counter intelligence corp, recommended his release from US custody, saying that Skorzeny was a soldier and a patriot, not a poopoo (?), and that he should be allowed to go to Madrid, where Skorzeny said he wanted to go. We know he went to Paris first, but was spotted there and moved to Madrid shortly afterwards. The main point about Arnold Silver is that he later went to work for the CIA, became station chief in Belgium I believe (might have been Luxembourg), and worked closely with William Harvey, who by then - 1962 I believe, was station chief in Rome, on the ZRRIFLE project, presumably the CIA assassination unit, and on the QJWIN project, about which there is some confusion still. Existing paperwork doesn’t state that per se, saying instead that they were recruiting from the European underworld for safe crackers and the like. There is so much more - I really hope you give this a look. Albarelli says that Souetre worked directly for Skorzeny in Spain in the early 1960’s as a military trainer. I think his source on that is Bud Fensterwald, gets little respect among most assassination researchers, but I think that is a shame. Perhaps Leslie Sharp, one of Albarelli’s co-writers, could elucidate this. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

We could choose to focus on him instead. But this thread started by Chris is about Souetre, and I’m sure by now he has become aware that there have Been many such threads, always ending in dead ends. It reminds me of the French Connection threads, similarly dying on the vine, because that investigation ended with Christian David’s false leads.

Indeed. I did wonder if anyone has further clarification. The article as a whole, though duplicating what many have read in pieces, was a good one IMHO.
 

On a side note: you’ve taught me a new word this evening, which I am grateful for.  Elucidate. Thanks. 

[Guest]

8 hours ago, John Butler said:

Some where I have read or seen something that suggests the person with Oswald in this photo taken in Russia is Jean Souetre.  I couldn't find that on a recent search of the forum and net.

I'm not sure, but this fellow with Oswald looks like photos of Souetre.  Souetre was born in 1930.  This fellow doesn't quite look like 29-32 in age.  This would be 1959 to 1962 for the years Oswald was in Russia.  He might be a young 30ish.

So, is this Souetre?  

I put together this to help decide.

There are resemblances in hairline and chin.  But, that may be coincidental.  If that was Souetre in the photo with Oswald above, is it just another sinister character associated with Oswald?  There is a long line of sinister characters starting with the Russian Colonel in Japan.

Your opinion will be valued.

I feel 98% sure its the same person. The bleachy shot with Ozzie makes him look more youthful, it’s why fashion photographers often use flash. I also know that diet + exercise + lifestyle + genetics can make a man look 10 years younger than his birth certificate states. David Sinclair (Harvard biologist, professor), author of Lifespan explains this adequately. What’s the rubble in the background? Where is this actually supposed to be? 
 

It was the CIA that De Gaulle accused of being responsible for an attempt on his life, in a letter to JFK, or more loosely worded. 

[Paul Brancato]

8 minutes ago, Chris Barnard said:

I feel 98% sure its the same person. The bleachy shot with Ozzie makes him look more youthful, it’s why fashion photographers often use flash. I also know that diet + exercise + lifestyle + genetics can make a man look 10 years younger than his birth certificate states. David Sinclair (Harvard biologist, professor), author of Lifespan explains this adequately. What’s the rubble in the background? Where is this actually supposed to be? 
 

It was the CIA that De Gaulle accused of being responsible for an attempt on his life, in a letter to JFK, or more loosely worded. 

It was the CIA, through the OAS, that DeGaulle blamed when he said in so many words that the guys that tried to kill him killed JFK. 

[John Butler]

2 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

I feel 98% sure its the same person. The bleachy shot with Ozzie makes him look more youthful, it’s why fashion photographers often use flash. I also know that diet + exercise + lifestyle + genetics can make a man look 10 years younger than his birth certificate states. David Sinclair (Harvard biologist, professor), author of Lifespan explains this adequately. What’s the rubble in the background? Where is this actually supposed to be? 
 

It was the CIA that De Gaulle accused of being responsible for an attempt on his life, in a letter to JFK, or more loosely worded. 

Chris,

I am fairly sure its Oswald and Souetre, but no supporting evidence.  Or, genetics can keep you young in appearance until about 30.  I was still being carded for booze at age 26-27.  If his is 1960 or there abouts Souetre could be 29 or 30 years old.  

The rubble in the background is left over from WWII.  A good deal of the buildings in Minsk were rebuilt from that kind of rubble.  Notice the wall in the back of this photo.  This is just outside the lab or area that Oswald worked in at the Minsk plant.  It is from the rubble of other buildings.

[John Butler]

Speaking of Lee Oswald in Minsk, or one of the Lee Oswalds in Minsk.  I am not sure many people have seen this photo of the folks on the bridge in Minsk taking pictures of themselves.  I don't know who the male is in the photo with Marina and her friend.  

The picture on the left hand either came from photos found at the Paines or from Alan Weberman.  I had never seen the man in this photo before.  I believe everyone more or less believed that the only people there were Oswald, Marina, and her friend.  Now, there is some one else.

[Leslie Sharp]

Duplicate post

 

 

Edited May 13, 2022 by Leslie Sharp
duplicate

[Steve Thomas]

18 hours ago, John Butler said:

Thanks Steve,

This was the kind of answer I was looking for.  However, the Oswald in Russia time period is from 1959 to 1962.  

What happened to Souetre after he left his regiment in 1960?  Any ideas?

John,

Because of his outspoken opposition to Algeria becoming an independent country from France, Souetre was transferred back home. Rather than accept that transfer, Souetre deserted. He went underground, and formed the first "Maquis", or underground resistance group. He holed up on a farm in Oursanis, and was captured in January, 1961. He spent all of 1961 in prison and missed the Revolt of the Generals in April, 1961. 

In December, 1961, he was put on trial, and was put more or less on probation. Because DeGaulle had invoked Article 16 of the French Constitution, a Military Tribunal stepped in; overrode the Civil Authorities, and sentenced him to a prison camp in the south of France called Saint-Maurice l'Ardoise. In the early morning hours of February 18, 1962, he broke out of prison with 17 other men by digging a 35 foot tunnel under the prison walls along the same lines as the movie, The Great Escape.  10 of the men were immediately re-captured, but the remaining 8 remained at large, Souetre among them. He made his way to Spain and Portugal and went underground.

While he was confined in the prison campn, he somehow found time to marry his second wife, a woman named Josette from a prominent family in the Bodeaux region of France. It was quite the scandal of its time. The wedding was featured in an article in the Paris Match magazine. The General who served as the official witness to the wedding (the equivalent of our best man), was a hippy who once declared that he would rather put flowers in the barrels of soldiers guns than make war, and who organized a rock concert for the Rolling Stones.

He was suspected by the police and the press of being involved in the attack on Charles DeGaulle at Petit Clamart in August, 1962, but I have seen no evidence of that. At one time, he and Jean Marie Curutchet were the two most wanted men in France.

It's an absolutely fascinating story.

Steve Thomas

 

Edited May 13, 2022 by Steve Thomas

[Benjamin Cole]

Interesting article. Serious JFKA researcher John Newman, I think, is exploring the US Army intel and Gladio angles. 

Larry Hancock, also a serious JFKA researcher, has raised questions about the whole Souetre-Gladio-European angle, and also presented practical evidence of abundant Cuban-exile inclinations and possible foreknowledge of the JFKA (see his comments above). 

I always come back to, "Who could manipulate LHO on that day?" 

The answer to that leans more to the JMWAVE-Cuban exile crowd, with whom LHO had some relations.

But hey, you never know. 

[Leslie Sharp]

Perhaps these photos will prompt a renewed discussion related to confusion surrounding the physical identities of Jean Rene Souetre and Michel Mertz. 

Clockwise:

1. Upper left corner, Jean Souetre.

2. The caption to the left of the two photos in the upper right corner (translated loosely from French): This poor quality photograph is a unique piece. It is the agent of the DST Michel Mertz, from two different angles, infiltrator of the OAS environment to protect de Gaulle. He was in Dallas November 22 where he pretended to be Souetre. His presence in Texas is proof that the French services knew that Kennedy was going to be assassinated that day.  The photos are purported to have been provided by French intelligence; as noted in the caption, the publication asserts that the man is Michel Mertz.

3. Lower right corner, Jean Souetre.

4. Bottom row center, Michel Mertz

5. Bottom left corner, Michel Mertz

 (this is my first photo link. please advise if you aren't able to view.)

375703930_Souetre-Mertzidentityconfusion.pdf

[Paul Brancato]

5 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Perhaps these photos will prompt a renewed discussion related to confusion surrounding the physical identities of Jean Rene Souetre and Michel Mertz. 

Clockwise:

1. Upper left corner, Jean Souetre.

2. The caption to the left of the two photos in the upper right corner (translated loosely from French): This poor quality photograph is a unique piece. It is the agent of the DST Michel Mertz, from two different angles, infiltrator of the OAS environment to protect de Gaulle. He was in Dallas November 22 where he pretended to be Souetre. His presence in Texas is proof that the French services knew that Kennedy was going to be assassinated that day.  The photos are purported to have been provided by French intelligence; as noted in the caption, the publication asserts that the man is Michel Mertz.

3. Lower right corner, Jean Souetre.

4. Bottom row center, Michel Mertz

5. Bottom left corner, Michel Mertz

 (this is my first photo link. please advise if you aren't able to view.)

375703930_Souetre-Mertzidentityconfusion.pdf 271.9 kB · 4 downloads

I’m able to view the pics. Could you clarify - what is DST? Where and when does the opinion that Mertz was in Dallas pretending to be Souetre originate?

[Paul Brancato]

Just now, Paul Brancato said:

I’m able to view the pics. Could you clarify - what is DST? Where and when does the opinion that Mertz was in Dallas pretending to be Souetre originate?

DST is French External Intelligence Service

[Leslie Sharp]

Dick Russell, author of the seminal work, The Man Who Knew Too Much, writes in his analysis of the Pierre Lafitte datebook which serves as a cornerstone of Albarelli's Coup in Dallas:

SOUETRE. This clearly is Jean Rene Souetre, whose name appears in a number of entries between April 25 and December 4. It appears that Souetre was part of a “kill squad” who showed up for meetings in New Orleans, Madrid, and Mexico City prior to the assassination. Souetre’s name first appeared in the “assassination literature” following a 1977 release of CIA documents, which stated that “he had been expelled from the U.S. at Fort Worth or Dallas 48 hours after the assassination . . . to either Mexico or Canada.” According to what the FBI told a Souetre acquaintance whom I interviewed, he’d been “flown out that afternoon by a private pilot . . . in a government plane.” Souetre was a known hitman for the OAS, a terrorist group in France that had targeted President de Gaulle. 

A relevant excerpt from Coup:
How do we know that these experienced assassins, who emerged from the ranks of La Cagoule to deal directly with Otto Skorzeny, coalesced in 1963 specific to our investigation of events in Dallas? Some of the answers reside in a series of obscure post-assassination letters addressed to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover from a Mr. Paul Gluc, 112 General Leclerc Avenue, Boulogne Billancourt (92) France. According to one of the letters, Mr. Gluc, a self-described benevolent detective, was employed by French automobile manufacturer Régie Renault and lived in a populous suburb five miles from the centre of Paris.

            A detailed account of this strange and revealing correspondence over a span of nine years, and the subsequent FBI memo traffic that attempted to discredit its significance and impugn the character of the author, is available to the reader in the endnotes to this chapter. For now, the following excerpts serve to not only validate the aforementioned history of assassins directly associated with one another, and by inference with Otto Skorzeny, but they also provide Gluc’s independent confirmation of certain entries in the 1963 datebook of Pierre Lafitte essential to the investigation of the assassination of John Kennedy.

Mr. Director, only you can clear OTTO SKORZENY of guilt

of being (an) agent in the Dallas operation with (the) passive

complicity of Allen W. Dulles.

                                    —Paul Gluc, March 14, 1975

 

The 1975 letter was Gluc’s fourth and final correspondence with the FBI. The first letter, dated March 18, 1964, just four months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and later claimed by the FBI to be either lost or misplaced, was hand-written in English to “Mr. Hoover, director of the FBI.” It reads: 

I understand you are very close to the solution of all the mysteries of President Kennedy’s assassination, but I suspect you are without key information. This information concerns the holders of many of the missing cards, Jean Souetre, as well as Jean Paul Filiol, both known to have been in Dallas on 22 November 1963. . . . Included in this knowledge are Mme. Lamy and M. Litt, all mentioned before, and extremely distasteful individuals. . . . I am anxious to spell this out for you by coming to Washington, D.C.

The letter was signed: “Mr. Gluc.” 

            Author Albarelli is grateful to Mr. Gluc’s son, Thierry Baudin for providing a photocopy of the carbon copy of his father’s first letter to Director Hoover, the contents of which suggest Hoover's Bureau had every reason to misplace it. 

            With his letter, Gluc has provided us independent corroboration that Filiol, Lamy and Litt were known associates and that they were in Dallas, and as noted, he did so as early as March 1964. We also see, perhaps for the first time outside of cryptic reports that revealed a smattering of facts, that the FBI was made aware of the possibility that known assassin Jean Souetre had been in Dallas. Yes, Gluc could have simply picked up on the obscure rumors about Souetre being expelled from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but there was no known trail in the public domain of the presence of Filiol, Lamy and or Litt in Dallas that would tie the three to Jean Souetre.